It’s weird to peel back layers of identity that we tie to physical attributes. Two years ago, this was the longest my hair had been and likely my longest beard—a week later, it had all fallen out from chemo. That hit me harder than I wanted to admit at the time, but it offered a reminder that we are, in fact, more than our bodies and features. When treatment was over, I marked a fresh start with a hot shave, and I haven’t had more than a light maintenance trim (for either) in the 18-ish months since. Not that I necessarily want to look a certain way, but I have a hard time committing to cutting anything—part of that seems to stem from some deeper desire to get back to what I knew, how I saw myself then, before I could feel fully restored from the whole experience. Two years provides for a lot of healing and perspective, but when it’s quiet, I still feel these memories, especially around the anniversaries of my diagnoses. The body remembers